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For Those Frustrated With The Google Invasion
Yeah
Obsolete Editions Of The Boys' And Girls' Handbooks
Scrotums Are Great
When Only A Tim Tam Will Do
The Significance Of Tuesday
Coming Home
Dear Jesus Freaks
A Beautiful Discussion
Harry Potter, Demon Spawn
Secret Origins: Dwarf Tossing
New Years Well Wishes
You're Responsible, You're The One To Blame, It's Your Fault
The History Of Vegemite
Mmm... Full English Breakfast
For Those Frustrated With The Google Invasion - Jouniac
Huh (looks around)?
Can this be... true?
I'm... home? After all this wandering and searching... I'm... back?
Yuh...Ye... puny... Google-mortals. Ye thought ye could stop me? Make me disapear into the darkness? Ye thought I could not find my way back?
Aye, ye were wrong. YE HEAR ME, GOOGLE-MORTALS? WRONG!!
Now, face the WRATH OF THE MIGHTY JOUNIAC!!! (shakin' his fist to the thundering skies)
Buh.. but first I... I must rest for... awhile (collapses to the floor).
Yeah - Everyone, then Hurm, JAC, Jinx and Loz
Perhaps.
Unlikely.
Possibly.
Couldn't possibly be.
But it had potential
you don't say.
Ah! No?
Certainly.
Hurm: Bugger off! Jesus said so last night while he was dancing with a turtle by the window. So there.
JAC: bah. dude needs a haircut, a shave, and a real job. can't be bumming off his dad forever, ya know.
Jinx: Well Gaia and I were chatting and she said Jesus is full of crap. So there :P
Loz: So what? Eris appeared to me in a tub of lard and said she'd seen Gaia with her knickers down and she was pissed off due to that.
Jinx: Gaia doesn't wear knickers silly boi
Loz: Damn that pesky Goddess of Confusion! <shakes fist at sky>
Jinx: As a few pounds of dead smelly fish drop on your head. She's also the Goddess of Humor
Loz: It's always funny to the person NOT under the pile of haddock...
Loz: Just imagine what would happen if I got all the female Thingies together in a room and threw in a Golden Apple... <g>
Obsolete Editions Of The Boys' and Girls' Handbooks - Anonymous, Daniel Reid and Madam Melpomene
Anon: Does it say somewhere in the boy manual that the way to a girl's heart is by trouncing her innuendo with pun?
Anon: I did not think so... : p
DR: Actually, my copy does. Chapter 5 (Charm, Moxie, Fizzazz), subsection 3, paragraph 5.
DR: "On those occasions the object of one's attention (henceforth 'the chick') a) communicates in a more ambiguous manner than usual (see chapter 6, Communication) and b) the aforementioned ambiguity could be construed as sexual in nature the proper response is one that not only completely ignores all ambiguity but goes off on a tangent, preferably making the chick seem somewhat dim-witted in making such odd remarks."
DR: Of course, I prefer to think of them as guidelines :)
M: <gasp>
M: Oh no!
M: You got the "Trekking for A New Hope in a TARDIS" Edition!
M: Didn't you hear? They recalled that edition because it was endangering the propagation of the human race! : p
Mel - Who got the same edition of the Girl's Handbook...
Scrotums Are Great - Sally, Lady Miss Tree, bafog1, Loz,
S: In all my years living in Australia (which is most of them) I have never, EVER, seen or even heard of a kangaroo scrotum pouch. (Unless it's attached to the kangaroo, of course) Admittedly, I don't tend to frequent souvenir shops, but surely this is the sort of thing I would have heard of??
LMT: I hate to say it, but not only have I heard of these, I've seen them. Apparently kangaroo scrotums are the perfect size and shape for a coin purse and the fur is soft. I recall seeing one, picking it up and then screeching and flinging it when someone told me what it was.
L: I can see that Gary Larson cartoon, only now it's a kangaroo in a phone booth going "They used it for WHAT?!"
S: I wonder whether a human scrotum would make a nice coin purse? You know, that line really shouldn't be quoted out of context. :)
b: I was wondering the same thing... then decided it would depend on the man. I know a few that might just stuff a penny or three, while others... um, :)
S: *giggles* *thinks* *giggles*
b: Hmmmm... I really need to get my brain out of this topic.
S: Scrotums are great.
b: Taken out of context, I like this remark even more!
When Only A Tim Tam Will Do - Lady Miss Tree, Lucy Anne
LMT: bonging a Tim Tam--to bite off diagonally opposite corners of a Tim Tam and suck a beverage (recommendations: coffee, tea, hot chocolate, scotch) through the Tim Tam until it starts to melt in your fingers. Then lick the nummy remaining goo from your fingers.
LA: *Warning* Do not attempt this with anything less than a Tim Tam. American cookies are not structurally sound enough to submit to the extreme forces of this activity, even when they are tasty and have names like "Thin Mints". Bonging other chocolate covered cookies/biscuits could be hazardous to your health, or at least your clothes.
Trust me on this one.
-la, very glad the cubicle across from me is currently unoccupied.
You have to wonder what Girl Scout cookies are made of. Especially when they even say they are made by Little Brownie Bakers
The Significance Of Tuesday - Harvey Lee, Patrick Marcel, Colt
H: It's Tuesday where I am.
P: Is there some mystic significance in Tuesday? I mean I like Tuesday, but not particularly more than many other days of the week. Wednesday is nice, too.
C: Where´s Sheri when you need her?
C: <sigh>
C: <sits Patrick down, grave look>
C: See, son, the, y´know, the facts o´life... Hrrrum. <takes a puff from his pipe> Y´see, the bees and the flowers, right? <exhales some wonderful rings of smoke> I mean, you know what they DO, right? I mean... with each other? Hmmm? <puff> Just picture that maybe on... <cough> on Tuesdays, at least in Thingie-Land, they do the same thing, only also... well... y´know... the bees with other bees and the flowers with other flowers, okay? I mean, not exCLUsively, but... And... <puff, puff> Well, maybe the flowers start to, y´know, whip each other, only a bit, so it doesn´t REALLY hurt, and the bees start wearing this kinky leather stuff. <long, grave look> D´you catch ma meaning, son? It´s just that on Tuesdays, well, Thingie-bees and -flowers like to make things more... hurrrm... INteresting, right? <long pause> Drat. Now my pipe´s gone out...
After many months of walking across the soft places, Ninave finally reaches the Stronghold of Alt fan-thingie. She shakes the sand out of her shoes, and pushes her way though the huge door. She passes through the great room, pausing for a moment to consider the dart covered poster of Todd McFarland, the table covered with tim-tams, the tasteful framed painting of Neil Gaiman. She picks up her suitcase again and goes through the hall, passing various rooms.
In one, a young woman with astonishing blue hair is shifting books around on her shelves. "if I put all these under the mouse cage, " she says to the Scotsman whose sitting near, sharpening his claymore, "I think I'll be able to fit at least four more foreign-addition Stardusts." Ninave keeps going, not looking too closely at any of the rooms, but getting impressions: A young woman quietly playing her violin, the Moulin Rouge soundtrack not seeming to distract her, a poster on one door saying "I'm in hell" and pointing to*some* area of the Midwest...she peeked in another room, and saw the Seattle needle...a belly dancing costume, folded neatly in one chair, another lady picking cat hair off her and muttering about having to be at her brother's house in an hour, and wondering aloud when her boyfriend was going to move closer....a man peeling off labels and affixing them to Dream haven Catalogues...she remembered that her own rooms were close to where the thingy tee shirts were made, so she followed the smell of screen printing past rooms filled with books, computers and cd's, filled with people she thought she knew by their possessions, people who'd moved in after she left, a list as interesting and versatile as anything, and way too long to list here...
She reached her own door, finally, and smiled. Hello everyone! I'm home!
Dear Jesus Freaks,
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your pamplets, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.
a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev.1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness (Lev.15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11'10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
g) Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the alter of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27 How should they die?
i) I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread. (Cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev. 24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
A Beautiful Discussion - snow, Daniel Reid and Ninave
s: You know, guys, I am so glad you had this discussion...I'm sure I'm not alone when I say these things, as follows: when I'm talking to a guy, all I can think of, later, is how dumb I must have sounded.
DR: ...when in fact he's probably thinking the same.
s: All I can think of when I'm standing next to a guy, (it seems) is if my hair's gone all limb or if he thinks I'm chubby.
DR: ...when in fact he's been secretly enjoying your smile, or the curl of your lashes, or your sense of humour of even (dare I say it) your luvverly curves.
s: It's sad, and a tad pathetic, but that's how we're all warped, and warped early....
DR: I don't think it's pathetic at all. Sad, maybe. To me, there's two good things about uncertainty : First of all, it makes things that little bit more exciting. Obviously, this is only within certain limits, but the whole "omigosh, does s/he like me or was s/he just staring in horror" etc. is, if not enjoyable at the time, at least fun to look back on and have a good laugh at. Second, and this is the most important bit, we all know how the people that don't admit their uncertainties turn out. Ugh.
s: I bought, for no good reason a couple of weeks ago, this old book on Marilyn Monroe that was at a yard sale. I flipped through it....and there's even some of her famous undressed pics in there, and you know what? She wasn't that much skinnier than me.
DR: *gasp!*
s: They had a home movie shot of Jayne Mansfield on TV awhile back, and she wasn't waif thin either.
DR: *double gasp!* <g>
N: I agree. It is so nice to hear this from someone I'm not married to. Cause, frankly, I'm never sure if he means it or just wants to continue to have a working computer... Oh, he means it. He'd better.
DR: I'm pretty sure which sex gets the better deal : Women worry, men worry about women. Says it all, really. <g>
Harry Potter, Demon Spawn - Reg
There are an awful lot of alleged christians out there who are convinced that Harry Potter is actually just a thinly disguised satanist tract. Apparently the purpose of the Harry Potter books is to desensitise children to the occult so that when the Antichrist does start his much anticipated tour of the Earthly realms, the kiddies will welcome him with open arms. Now I've looked into this and there is a certain amount of evidence to support their claims.
For example, watch "The Omen II". One of the figures in the mosaic which shows the faces of the Antichrist looks exactly like the kid who plays Harry Potter except it isn't wearing glasses.
If you change the letters in the name JK Rowling and add one, they spell "Anton LeVay". (Also Micky Mouse, but that's just more satanic subterfuge.)
It explains Nostradamus' quatrain DVVIII: "In the year that smells of algebra On Hogwarts chariot Comes the great king of terror Arbitrarily merchandise gobbling" Which was previously thought to relate to either the election of Pope Gregory the Ninth, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the character of Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars, Episode One: The Phantom Menace or Nostradamus being a complete nutjob.
If you read the penultimate page of every chapter in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" backwards, you are probably someone who could do with a decent apocalypse to liven up your life.
Harry Potter appeals to children of all ages, unlike fundamentalist christians who appeal to anyone they think they can get money out of, therefore he must be evil. The Harry Potter books make children engage in behavior their fundamentalist christian parents don't understand, like reading for pleasure, actually, reading in general. Clearly this whole Harry Potter phenomenon is just a test run for the arrival of the Adversary.
But I think there is hope in this for the Soldiers of the Light. Instead of having to cast around for wars, famines and inexplicable rains of gerbils as signs that we are living in the End Times, (and lets face it, the whole Millenium thing was a real disappointment,) they can now just sit back and wait for the whole massive lead in merchandising push and the cross-promotional deals with prominent soft drink companies.
I can see it now, McFarlane Toys' "Rex Mundi" range of action figures, (although they'll have to read the fine print about intellectual property in the contract,) Pepsi, (who will make sure they get the deal after missing out on the trial run,) offering "Buy one, get eternal damnation free!" deals, the KFC "Inferno Burger Deal",("Lick your fingers while you've got 'em.")... For the adults, (because the Apocalypse isn't just for kids,) Pfiser(sp) could release "Great Beast of the Revelation" Viagra, "Guaranteed for seven heads and ten horns", Great Whore of Babylon personal lubricant.. the possibilities are endless.
So I think the Christian soldiers are fairly safe. They might lose out on the cash cow this time around, but I'm sure they'll get their rewards when they stand before the Lord. Them and Osama, they know what really makes God happy.
Secret Origins: Dwarf Tossing - Loz, Patric Marcel, Reg
L: "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" They had to know there was a double entendre there when they wrote that surely?
P: Well, being Zew-zealanders and dwarf-tossing being an infamously Australian sport, from what I hear, I don't even suppose they could have written this bit it innocently. I thought it was a pleasantly light touch in a dark and hectic moment.
R: Actually Patrick, as I have heard it told, dwarf tossing originated in the US and as with all bad American ideas, some "entrepenurial" souls tried to do it here. I think that only one competition was ever held before it was banned on the grounds that it was demeaning to dwarves, to say nothing of being demeaning to the audience and bloody stupid.
R: Rabbit skinning, gumboot-tossing, gumleaf-blowing, cane-toad-racing and largest procession of dogs-in-the-back-of-utes records; these we can take responsibility for, but dwarf tossing is another creation from the land of croissant-in-can and monster truck rallies.
R: And now I'll let Sparrow explain in detail the ways in which New Zealanders are not Australians.:-P
R: Reg (who has never tied a kangaroo down or been involved in any other form of marsupial bondage either)
Happy 2002 thingies.
Hopefully we've all got that hang of the third millenium now and this one will be a lot better than 2001. Stanley Kubrick didn't make a boring, incomprehensible movie about this year so that's a good start.
I can't say that 2001 completely sucked for me. Much of the second half of it was quite good on a personal level and in a rebuilding my life from the ashes kind of way. I finally got my own place, I began a relationship with a beautiful woman who is much more sensible than I am and I rebuilt some bridges that I had set fire to previously. It was certainly a crucible year for me though and a lot of it was rough. I'm not sorry to see it end.
So here's hoping that this is the Year of the Thingies, the year when the hitherto secretive cult who worship Miss Tree as a goddess go public with a campaign of random Tim Tam mailings, when Cassie receives the call to become official Whitehouse cat and declines on the grounds that she has just found a nice warm spot in Carolina to curl up in and ain't moving, when Scrabble is made an Olympic sport and Margret becomes the heroine of the nation, when Hollywood announces it is remaking every Marx Brothers film ever and calls Scott in as cheif script consultant, when Lucy Anne is placed in charge of the Library of Congress, when Michelle wins the Nobel Peace Prize for just being really nice to everyone no matter how insufferably annoying they can get sometimes, when international agreements are signed to recognise Loz as a very fine piece of humanity without reference to gender, when Oprah gets dumped from network television after the controversial interview with Jinx who demonstrates why Oprah doesn't know shit about life, when publishers discover the market for the burgeoning genre of "Thingie books", when Sydney University discovers it is short of a grumpy bastard and creates a chair of Alan Moore studies for Mute, when Colt is officially recognised as Germany's most eligible and charming bachelor, when airlines announce special "thingie rates" for flights to Melbourne from anywhere in the world, when every guy who goes to school with Shira wakes up to himself and realises what's passing him by, when every thingie gets what they deserve, or at least what I think they deserve. I'm biased, because I sort of like you people.
Whatever, I hope 2002 is good to you all.
You're Responsible, You're The One To Blame, It's Your Fault - Sally, Colt and Reg
S: Yes, it is a rather large fire, isn't it? It has encircled Sydney and is advancing in a somewhat menacing fashion.
C: Maybe it´s just trying to be friendly? Or it had a bad childhood? Who knows?
R: Personally, I blame old people.
R: I mean, if young fires were given proper role models and constructive ways to channel their energy none of this would happen. Go into any country pub and there'll be some old bloke saying "I remember Black Friday, back in '39. These new fires aren't a patch on that. Back then there were flames a hundred foot high. We couldn't use fire-trucks because they melted in the heat of the flames and afterwards there wasn't a house left standing in the whole of Australia!" Really, what sort of example does this set for a young fire?
R: It doesn't end there though. You can't go for a nice noisey night out anymore. The number of times in the last couple of years that I've gone to a place I fondly remember from my younger days as a good rowdy live music venue and find that it has become some kind of haunt for glassy eyed geriatrics intent on squandering the money that they should be investing in creating jobs for future generations on slot machines, bingo and weak tea...It makes me worry about the past sometimes.
R: Every time I catch public transport, I see elderly people hanging around the station, dressed in a way that no-one with any self respect would dress, the women with their hair died all manner of garish blues and purples, the men looking like they hardly even know where they are. All of them obviously on drugs.
R: I can't go to the country without being harassed by people who should be safely tucked away in nursing homes wanting to know which bus they should be on or how to work the ticket machines. Oh yes, that's what they say, but the unspoken subtext is "Carry my bags.and listen to me boast about my grandchildren who never come to see me but are much more successful than you or you'll find out what the pointy end of a Zimmer frame feels like."
R: You can't turn on the radio without hearing their supposedly "easy listening" music, (I can't speak for anyone else but I don't find it "easy" to listen to Matt Monroe five times a day, and as for Elaine Page singing about "Midnight, not a sound from the pavement..." when no-one who can stomach the song has seen midnight in twenty fucking years....) or worse still, the talkback programs where anyone can call up and express opions which are completely out of touch with the society they live in or just prattle on about whatever they feel like, assuming that despite the fact that everyone they know finds them boring to the point of catatonia, the listening public will find their blitherings fascinating.
R: Even if you go to the furthest reaches of the continent they are there with their spotless Toyota landcruisers and caravans the size of aircraft carriers, taking over campsites, forcing decent people to keep the noise down after ten PM and getting up at ungodly hours of the morning.
R: I blame their children. They are the ones responsible for letting the elderly just roam the streets when they should be at home acting as unpaid baby sitters or gazing wistfully out the window of a nursing home.
R: I think it's time modern society woke up to itself and realised that this whole idea of "Letting people grow old with dignity" was a mistake. I say bring back National Service, (the Draft, for those of you of an American persuasion,) but only for those old enough to have been eligible the first time around. It's time that these old people took some responsibility for the state they've left the world in, instead of sitting back and leeching off society just because they're going to die soon.
The History of Vegemite - bafog1 and Reg
b: And you lot think Vegemite is food...
R: Ahh, you see, there is the fiendish cunningness of it all. We don't really. Vegemite is actually a national in-joke that we have been playing on the rest of the world for the last 85 years.
It began as a Great War psychological warfare exercise to convince the soldiers of the Central Alliance that Australians were some sort of supermen because of this inedible stuff that they apparently devoured with alacrity. Of course, this fiction was apparently confirmed by the fact that the Australian army was entirely composed of such specimens of almost godlike physical perfection as typifies the Australian male. Indeed, as propaganda coups went, it was only surpassed by the American strategy of claiming the championship after letting someone else fight the first fourteen rounds.
After the war, the myth went on, just as the Second War British story about feeding pilots carrots to improve their eyesight did. Soon, even the British general staff spoke of how this appalling stuff seemed to turn the Australians into tall, bronzed demi-gods compared to their own malnourished, vitamin D starved cannon fodder. The American chiefs of staff, while publicly denying that the first three years of the war had ever happened, decided on a policy of pretending Australia didn't exist, the Austro-Hungarian Empire saw the writing on the wall and ceased to exist, the Germans went and reread their Nietsche and the French just decided that since they were obviously no longer a military power, they would invest in sneering as a defence against future invasion.
The Australian government decided that since this strategy had been so successsful, it was vital to the national defence to maintain the illusion of the superfood that only Australians could eat. An official letter was sent, under strictest secrecy to all Australians, (and later, in 1966 also sent to Aboriginal Australians, when they were officially recognised as "Also Australians") asking that when they were in contact with persons of a non-Australian persuasion, they maintain a pretence of not only eating Vegemite, but actually considering it rather tasty and that they feign complete incomprehension at anyone not liking it.
The Australian populace, with their notoriously wry sense of humour, collectively agreed that the whole thing was a bloody good piss-take on the rest of the world and proceded to try to pursuade all international visitors to try the stuff as well as telling stories of dipping baby pacifiers in Vegemite as part of their oral tradition.
The Vegemite strategim continued to prove successful in warfare. The seige of Tobruk in the Second World War was only broken when Rommel recieved (false) intelligence that the Australian defenders had recieved smuggled shipments of Vegemite, prompting his famously mistranslated quote:"Give me a battalion of soldiers who can eat Vegemite and I could conquer the world."
Yet again, in Vietnam, the Vegemite strategy was so overwhelmingly successful that the increasingly jealous and bewildered US Joint Chiefs of Staff were reduced to claiming the war had been lost purely on the grounds that they didn't like the post-war government of Vietnam.
During the Seventies and Eighties, cracks began to appear in the Australian Nation's previously resolute straight face. Alan Hopgood's classic play "Here Comes Bucknucle" with its satirical discussion of a super-food created from a blend of completely inedible foods, was rigorously suppressed by critics who claimed that it wasn't a patch on "And the Big Men Fly"
The question "If Vegemite is an acquired taste, who actually ate it when it was first invented?" became increasingly difficult to ignore.
And most dangerous of all, the passing of the generation who actually understood the joke and a sudden irrational surge in patriotism caused by finally out-cheating the New York Yacht Club and the discovery that it is possible to make really dumb movies away from Hollywood led some Australians to actually believe the myth that Vegemite was actually a foodstuff as opposed to an early twentieth century attempt to create a non-carbon-fuel-based axel grease from the waste products of beer production.
Now, at last, all can be revealed, since the Australian government has decided that: "Yeah! Like what he said, because I'm his bestest friend in the whole world and if you don't like me he'll blow you up." is a far better strategy against enemies both external and internal.
We hate the stuff.
You are all suckers.
But we still love you.
Mmm... Full English Breakfast - Pam and Ravenscroft
P: Ack! I swore, after our trip to Ireland and the UK in 2000, that I never wanted to see another "full English" breakfast again as long as I lived.
R: Hah! The Full English Breakfast has made me what I am today... pasty-faced, wheezing, and nearly spherical...
R: In reality, the FEB's roots can be traced back quite a long way. In the mid-1500s, rumours started spreading about a certain "morninge-after diet" that was available in one of London's more notorious eateries. As a broadsheet of the time reported:
R: "When a younge Gentle Man wakes in the Morninge, with his Hed poffeffed by Demons and his Entrailes aflayme after a night of Caroufal, let him repair Poft-Hafte to Mrs. Miggins' Tea-Shoppe, where he may partake of the New Morninge Diet. Fineft Quality Meats, Breads and Egges, cooked in a New and Secret Style which involves Lots of Oile. Guaranteed Moft Efficacious againft All Forms of Fluxions, Agues, and Noxious Ale-Related Foulneffes."
R: And in those early days, the FEB was a wondrous thing: glistening sausages that contained real, *identifiable* meat: huge slabs of bacon: and so forth. However, this made it *expensive*, and therefore beyond the reach of the average English peasant, whose average yearly wage was two wooden coins and half a cup of brackish pondwater.
R: So, very quickly, inferior mass-produced copies of the original One True Breakfast began to appear. The brainchild of two shifty-eyed Scouse sheep thieves, and secretly produced in a run-down factory just outside Wolverhampton which used to make mud suppositories, these breakfasts were a pale imitation of the original. Thin, listless "bacon" was made by beating cardboard with a large iron mallet until tender, colouring it in with coloured pencils and then boiling it. "Sausages" were produced by packing lengths of old bicycle innertubes with a mixture of sawdust, mud and ground glass, to which was added a tiny piece of paper cut from a picture of some meat. And so it went on.
R: These new breakfasts quickly gained popularity, however, since in order to afford one the common peasant-about-town only had to sell one large child and one small one. Within a fairly short period, as English history goes - a couple of centuries - the English Breakfast had become embedded in the national consciousness. (It is only allowed the honoured prefix "Full" if the person who prepared it can prove, beyond all doubt, that they have never seen, eaten, or been within 200 yards of porridge.) As with all things that the English take to their hearts, any number of skirmishes, punch-ups, sundry random beatings and one small war that no-one talks about much can be attributed to what the Englishman regards as his God-given right to consume something huge and fried before 9am.
R: Nowadays, of course, people are far more health-conscious than before. Any number of Englishmen have been told by their doctors to cut down on their intake of FEBs, to which they conscientiously responded (after careful consideration) by removing one grilled tomato and up to ten baked beans from their plates. (And then changing their doctor until they get one that they like: preferably huge, baleful, and slightly mad, who can snap pound coins between his fingers and There is an increasing shift towards so-called "organic" breakfasts, which contain meat products from happy, smiling animals without a care in the world who have grazed their entire life in fields that have never seen a pesticide (but which happen to be situated two miles downwind from a nuclear power station, on the site of an old paint factory. Finally of course there are those who insist that the FEB is an unhealthy anachronism: of course, England shall rise up against them with pitchforks and brands of fire, and sweep them into the sea.
P: Fruit, people! Granola, fer cryin' out loud! And that's not bacon, anyway!
P: Okay. They often had yogurt. I'll give 'em that.
R: That wasn't yoghurt. That was flavoured lard :-)